Luxembourg remains far ahead
Luxembourg records the highest statutory monthly minimum wage in 2025, reaching €2,704.
Minimum wage across Europe
Statutory wage floors, long-term growth and convergence
Minimum wages define the legal wage floor in countries where a national statutory minimum wage exists. This page tracks monthly statutory minimum wages in euros across European countries from 2000 to 2025, using comparable Eurostat-based data.
The time series shows how minimum wages changed over time, from relatively low wage floors in Central and Eastern Europe at the start of the century to much higher levels in recent years. The latest map and table provide a snapshot of current statutory minimum wage levels and the remaining gap between lower- and higher-wage countries.
Explore the data
Key insights
Central and Eastern Europe grew fastest
Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania and Slovakia recorded some of the strongest long-term increases since 2000.
Large gaps remain in 2025
In 2025, statutory minimum wages range from €551 in Bulgaria to €2,704 in Luxembourg.
Key comparisons
Selected highlights from the monthly statutory minimum wage dataset, 2000–2025. Values are shown in euros.
Extended analysis
1) Minimum wage levels differ sharply across Europe
The latest year shows large differences in statutory monthly minimum wages. In 2025, the highest levels were recorded in Luxembourg (€2,704), Ireland (€2,282), Netherlands (€2,246), Belgium (€2,112) and France (€1,802).
At the lower end of the ranking, the lowest values were recorded in Bulgaria (€551), Hungary (€727), Latvia (€740), Romania (€797) and Slovakia (€816).
2) The fastest growth came from low starting levels
The strongest percentage increases between 2000 and 2025 were recorded in Romania (+2,244%), Bulgaria (+1,350%), Estonia (+896%), Lithuania (+819%) and Slovakia (+768%).
These large percentage gains reflect very low starting points in 2000 and rapid nominal wage-floor increases over the following decades. They show clear convergence, but they do not mean that wage levels have fully caught up with Western European countries.
3) Absolute gains were largest in high-wage countries
In euro terms, the largest absolute increase between 2000 and 2025 was recorded in Luxembourg (+€1,483), followed by Ireland (+€1,337), Netherlands (+€1,135), Belgium (+€1,016) and Poland (+€933).
This shows why both percentage growth and absolute changes matter. Countries with low initial wage floors often show the fastest percentage growth, while countries with higher starting levels can still record very large euro increases.
4) The East-West gap narrowed, but did not disappear
Many Central and Eastern European countries increased their statutory minimum wages substantially over the period. By 2025, countries such as Poland (€1,100), Lithuania (€1,038), Slovenia (€1,278) and Croatia (€970) had moved much closer to older high-wage member states than at the start of the century.
Even so, the distance remains large. In 2025, the gap between Luxembourg and Bulgaria still reached €2,153 per month.
5) Not all countries are directly comparable
This dataset covers countries where comparable statutory minimum wage values are available. Some European countries do not have a universal national statutory minimum wage, while others may have different wage-setting systems based on collective agreements or sectoral rules.
Germany and Croatia appear in the dataset from 2015 onward. Countries without comparable values in the dataset are not shown in the visualizations.
How to read this indicator
Minimum wages are shown as monthly statutory minimum wages in euros. The indicator is useful for comparing legal wage floors across countries, but it should not be interpreted as average wages, disposable income or purchasing power. Differences in taxation, working hours, collective bargaining systems and price levels can all affect how minimum wages are experienced in real life.